The fitness hall buzzed with a low, constant hum, dozens of overlapping conversations, shuffling feet, the occasional nervous laugh as students filed into the line snaking toward the assessment rooms.
Hasib and Simon took their place near the back, and it was Simon who noticed first, elbowing Hasib lightly in the ribs.
"Hey. Look who’s behind us."
Hasib turned, and his eyes widened.
Rocky stood a few places back in the line, arms crossed, unbothered by the noise and shuffling around him, as composed as always.
"How is he always like that," Hasib muttered.
A few places ahead, another boy caught their attention for an entirely different reason: broad, standing nearly as tall as either of them, sweating slightly under the weight of his own bulk.
"Wait, that’s Chan, right?" Simon whispered. "He’s actually doing this exam?"
"Guess so."
"...Huh."
They exchanged a glance that said neither of them quite knew what to make of that, then let it go as the line inched forward.
The room ahead wasn’t a single line after all. The curtain split into three separate booths, each pulling students in at its own pace, so the queue that had looked so orderly outside dissolved the moment they stepped through. Rocky’s booth moved fast; his examiner barely needed thirty seconds per student.
When it was finally Hasib’s turn, he stepped through his own curtain, and the clinician glanced up without much interest.
"Alright. Take everything off, please."
Hasib froze.
"...Wait. Everything-everything?"
"Everything," the clinician confirmed, already reaching for his clipboard. "Full physical. Quickly, please, there’s a line."
The scale flashed his weight in large glowing numbers, and Hasib winced. "Right. Of course." He muttered something under his breath through the whole process while the clinician took notes without so much as a raised eyebrow, clearly having seen this exact reaction from every boy that morning.
Nobody warned me it would be this thorough.
Those who passed the first round were funneled into a second, larger room. Thanks to his booth’s faster pace, Rocky was already there by the time Hasib and Simon walked in, leaning silently against the far wall, arms crossed, not speaking to anyone around him.
"Hey, man!" Simon raised a hand.
Rocky glanced over, gave a single short nod, and said nothing at all.
Simon’s hand lowered slowly. "...Okay then."
Hasib leaned in close to his ear. "Does he ever actually talk?"
"Apparently not to us," Simon muttered back. "Guy barely says two words to anyone. Just does his own thing and ignores the rest of the world."
"Cool, I guess. If you’re into that."
"Every girl in this school is, somehow."
A soft chime rang out, and a translucent notification unfurled in the air above the front of the room, visible to every candidate at once, the day’s grading breakdown laid out in glowing script.
[FITNESS TEST: 10]
[OBSERVATION: 20]
[WRITING: 50]
[STAMINA: 20]
[NATURE OF METAL: 50]
A murmur ran through the room. Someone nearby asked what "Nature of Metal" even meant, and an instructor’s voice answered flatly from the front: "It determines what tier and type of blade the System assigns you. Higher score, better metal. That’s all you need to know for now."
Hasib stared at the numbers for a long moment.
Fifty marks for writing. Fifty for whatever metal I end up stuck with. I am so dead.
Across the hall, in the Observation exam room, Hina walked in beside Sara, her face still faintly flushed, fingers fidgeting with the edge of her veil.
"It’s fine," Sara said, not looking at her. "Nobody’s staring at you. It’s not that big of a deal."
"I-I know. I just... " Hina exhaled slowly. "It’s fine."
A girl from their class caught up to them, peering curiously between the two of them. "Hey, Sara, Hina wait, why do you both look so sweaty and red?"
Sara pulled her a step aside, dropping her voice. "They made us strip down completely for the internal check. Fully. No warning, nothing."
"Oh my god, seriously?"
"Yes. Now stop staring at us like that."
The girl clapped a hand over her own mouth, clearly filing that piece of information away for later gossip, and Sara sighed, steering Hina forward before the conversation could spiral any further.
Inside, a row of examiners waited with small props laid out in front of them, some with tea cups, others with small rubber balls. Students were called forward one at a time to sit across from an examiner, spin the object in their hand, and hold their focus as instructed.
Rocky went first among their group, settling into the seat without a flicker of hesitation. He spun the cup once, twice, watching it with the same lazy calm he approached everything with, and finished the exercise so cleanly the examiner didn’t even bother asking a follow-up question.
Then it was Hasib’s turn.
He sat down, and for a moment his hands actually trembled slightly around the cup.
Come on. Come on, focus...
Then, unbidden, the memory surfaced: the cannonballs screaming down out of that desert sky, the way he’d forced himself to track each one, to hold perfectly still and read their path instead of panicking. If he could do that, surely he could sit still in a chair and spin a cup.
He exhaled slowly, closed his eyes, and let his hand move on instinct alone.
The spin wobbled. Slowed. Nearly toppled twice.
At the very last second, without opening his eyes, he lifted the cup cleanly off the table and set it down, right side up, perfectly balanced.
He opened his eyes to find the examiner staring at him with faint surprise.
...I have never been so lucky in my entire life.
Back with the girls, Sara had just started toward the seat beside Rocky when another girl, Irin, slid into it first, flashing Rocky a bright smile before Sara had even fully registered what happened.
Sara’s hand curled into a fist at her side. She said nothing, simply turning and taking a seat further back instead, jaw tight.
Hasib, spotting her, immediately started toward the empty seat beside her, only for another student to drop into it half a second before he arrived.
He stood there for a moment, mildly stunned by his own bad luck, until a soft voice called out beside him.
"Hasib. You can sit here."
Hina had already scooted over, making room.
He dropped into the seat with a small, grateful huff. "Thanks."
"Mm," she said, and shifted again, closer than the seat really required, her fingers tightening slightly around the edge of her sleeve.
The written exam came next, sheets of dense questions distributed across every desk in the room. Hasib stared down at the first line and felt something in his chest sink.
I don’t know a single one of these.
He glanced sideways, not to cheat, just to think, he told himself, and caught sight of Hina’s paper, already half-filled with neat, careful handwriting.
...Okay. Maybe a little bit of cheating.
He copied what he could see, filling in answer after answer as quickly as possible, but the questions outpaced him, and by the time the papers were called in, he still had half the page blank.
"Papers up front, please," the examiner called. "Now."
Hasib sighed and handed his half-finished sheet over along with everyone else.
"Thanks, Hina," he murmured as they stood.
She glanced away quickly, cheeks coloring. "It’s nothing. Come on, next test."
The final event of the day was the stamina test, and the entire batch of students filed out into the open school grounds, where the instructors had them line up at the edge of the field.
"Boys, ten laps around the full grounds!" one of the instructors shouted over the noise. "Girls, eight! You have twenty minutes starting now!"
A whistle cut through the air.
The line broke into motion all at once, dozens of feet pounding against packed dirt as the run began, the whole field filling with the steady rhythm of breathing and footsteps under the late morning sun.
Rocky took the lead immediately, pulling ahead of the pack within the first few strides as though the rest of them were barely worth pacing himself against. Hasib wasn’t far behind, in fourth place, with Simon just ahead of him, counting laps under his breath between ragged breaths.
"Three... that’s three, right? Or four? I’ve lost count..."
"Three," Hasib gasped. "Keep going."
Behind them, the girls’ line fell into its own rhythm, sandals and sneakers slapping the dirt at a steadier pace than the boys’ sprint.
Lap after lap wore the field down. By the time the girls finished their eight and dropped, gasping, onto the grass at the sidelines, the boys were still grinding through their count, sweat soaking through shirts, breath coming in ragged pulls.
By the final stretch, the order had shifted. Simon, somehow, was in the lead, red-faced, arms pumping, clearly running on nothing but stubbornness at this point. Lio held second, steady and unbothered. And Hasib had fought his way into third, lungs burning, legs shaking with every stride.
Rocky, oddly, had let himself drift back through the pack over the last several laps, cruising at an almost lazy pace as though the whole exercise bored him.
Then, on the final lap, everything changed.
Without warning, Rocky exploded forward, his speed surging so suddenly it looked like he’d simply decided gravity no longer applied to him. He tore past one runner, then another, closing the gap on the leaders in a matter of seconds.
He caught up right behind Hasib.
"Wha..." Hasib’s eyes went wide, and he forced his legs to move faster, lungs screaming in protest.
From the sidelines, Hina was on her feet without realizing it, both hands pressed together in front of her chest.
"Go, Hasib! You can do it faster!"
A few feet away, Sara was shouting just as loud, fists clenched at her sides.
"Rocky! COME ON, ROCKY!"
The whole field went quiet as the two of them thundered down the final stretch, neck and neck, the gap between them shrinking with every stride.